One of our local representatives of the Georgia Forestry Commission arranged for the Trail Care Crew of the International Mountain Biking Association to come to our town, Milledgeville, to present a workshop on building better mountain bike trails. They met with my club Friday night to share tips on how to make our club more effective. Saturday morning they gave a presentation on trail design and building attended by several local MTB riders and some from Macon and other nearby towns. That afternoon we moved the workshop to Selma Irwin Nature Trails, one of the local MTB venues, to put our new knowledge to work by rerouting a section of the trail which had started to erode badly.

Today a few club members and I joined our guests for a MTB ride on the trails where we had worked yesterday. It was a good finish to a good weekend of meeting some great people and learning a lot of very useful information and techniques for building and maintaining fun and sustainable mountain biking trails.

The ride was my first time on singletrack since breaking my leg when the car hit me in August. My skills were a bit rusty and my fitness for the intense climbing on these trails was somewhat lacking, so I took a detour while the others rode the most advanced sections of the trails. Still, it was fun to get back to playing in the dirt. I did ride through a few technical sections and was glad to see I still had the chops to clean a tricky rock garden and a short climb over an exposed root that looks impossible to ride but is fairly easy if you do it just right. I made it three out of three times.

I did choose to stop and walk halfway down a steep and tight set of downhill switchbacks that I didn't feel good about. I can ride them when I'm in good form, but I wasn't quite ready today and I didn't feel like risking a broken bone so soon after healing my leg.

I'll say this about the inveterate MTBers: they're the first to volunteer to do trail work, unlike the equestians in this area. If we ever see a horsey type working on a trail, we'll keel over from shock.

No. But I was born there. My mother worked there for 35 years and child delivery care was a fringe benefit in those days. I worked there for a few years while going to college.

FYI for those not familiar, Milledgeville, GA is the home of Central State Hospital, which was once the largest mental institution in the world. It has been shrinking rapidly over the past few decades. Most of the buildings are now part of the prison system or are closed and empty. The trails we worked on and are riding in these pictures are located directly across the road from the hospital's medical/surgical building and less than a mile from the main grounds.

My first time hearing that you were hit by a car BluesDawg. That must've been terrible! I had picked up hints that you had been injured, but didn't know how. I wish you the best in continued healing, and building up your strength so you can get out and do more of what you love!